The arts may be key to propping up California economy

I’m not talking about secession or flying Sarah Palin down from Alaska, but about what may be the most important California arts event most Californians have never heard of: Fresno’s Rogue Festival.

Founded more than a decade ago in a local artist’s backyard, the independent festival brings thousands of people from around the country and the world to Fresno the first two weekends of March for hundreds of performances in a dozen different venues. It is a so-called “fringe” event because it takes all comers — from foreign pros to local amateurs to, well, rogues — in theater, music, dance, and film.

But what was once rogue feels today like a possible model for the state. California has big problems in employment (particularly in Fresno and other inland areas), education, and civic engagement. And the arts may be a solution to all three problems.

That’s why, at a major legislative hearing on the arts last week in Sacramento, there was little in the way of enchanting paintings or violin pieces — and a lot of hard numbers. Thanks to a definition of the “creative economy” broad enough to include people who make chairs, the figures, drawn from a new report from the Otis College of Art and Design, included 681,400 creative jobs in California pulling down an above-average average salary of $90,130; more than 260,000 similarly high-paying freelancer and contractor gigs; and $155 billion in economic impact.

All this can sound to the skeptical ear like so much arts lobby propaganda — until you look at a map of the state. It turns out that the region where the economy is strongest — the Bay Area — has the highest percentage of people who participate in the arts. The regions where spending on and participation in the arts are lowest — the San Joaquin Valley and Southern California’s Inland Empire — are the very same regions where the economy is weakest.

Yes, of course, places with wealth often have more happening in the way of arts. But the connections between arts and the economy run deep enough to make you wonder if this is a two-way street. Eric Metzger of Intel told the Legislature that the creative skillet fostered by arts education is crucial for design-oriented technical professions like engineering and computer science. The arts are a big draw — for retail investment in neighborhoods (that’s why we have so many arts districts) and for cities that need to attract college graduates and professionals.

Arts investments make especially good sense in California for another reason: The arts is a strength of ours. Surveys show we Californians are more likely to participate in arts and cultural events than people in other parts of the country. (We’re especially fond of salsa dance, jazz concerts, plays, art galleries, and museums). But as in so many areas where our state has led—in higher education, in Hollywood production, in aerospace engineering — we’ve failed to exploit our advantages.

Why? Because we’re cheap. We’ve gutted funding for the arts in schools, and we’re spending just $1 million from the state’s $100 billion general fund on the state arts council. Even with some federal money and donations from California motorists who buy arts license plates, our arts funding ranks at the bottom of American states. This makes little sense because arts as a method of public investment is relatively cheap, particularly when compared to, say, a $67 billion high-speed rail project.

State lawmakers are proposing to boost arts council funding to $25 million, and cities are devising new ways (hotel taxes are one) to invest in arts development. As for the rest of us, we can vote with our feet, by supporting the arts in those parts of the state that need a boost.

Fresno’s arts-oriented residents have made miracles with limited resources: a terrific ArtHop, a Rotary Club that is officially devoted to the arts, and the Rogue Festival, perhaps the best example of the surprise and serendipity that the arts can give us.

The town is transformed by the Rogue’s thousands of visitors, many of whom are taken in by local families for the festival’s two-week duration. The Rogue itself is wide open, with no jury or judges picking favorites. Audience members buy tickets to a variety of shows without knowing exactly what they’re in for. They might end up at a one-woman comedy about a writer and her demons, or an interactive multimedia presentation by a juggler-unicyclist-musician-turned-video producer. When something works, it’s magic.

Californians might prosper by embracing that spirit.

Mathews writes the Connecting California column for Zocalo Public Square.